In Their Own Way
by Rhianwen
Summary: It's not always so nice, hardly ever so nice, but Pansy thinks she would rather be happy in her own way sometimes, than happy in someone else's way all the time. PansySnape entry for 1sentence challenge community on livejournal.


In Their Own Way

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Summary: It's not always so nice, hardly ever so nice, but Pansy thinks she would rather be happy in her own way sometimes, than happy in someone else's way all the time. Pansy/Snape entry for 1sentence challenge community on livejournal.

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Disclaimer: All of the characters depicted herewithin are the creations and property of J. K. Rowling, who would be either horrified at what this Rhianwen psycho is doing with her characters, or indifferent, because hey, people have done far stranger. XD

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#01 – Comfort

Somehow, when she tells Draco, choking on sobs, about her detention with Professor Snape, and shows him the angry red marks streaking across her back and backside and the tops of her thighs because their head of house didn't want to take points from Slytherin, she doesn't feel half as much like a girl running to her boyfriend for comfort as an adolescent male bragging to his mates in the locker room.

#02 – Kiss

Even though it earned her twenty-five more, catching him by surprise and stealing that brief, fleeting peck on the lips before he shoved her back down over his desk by the back of her jumper, she's glad she did it; and even though he was so furious with the girl's _nerve _that he forgot to get the strap and now his hand is aching from repeated sharp slaps, he's glad too.

#03 – Soft

"Well, you're either mad about him or dead blind," Millicent snorts when Pansy describes the good Potions Master's hair, with a blissful dreamy sigh, as _soft _and _silky_.

#04 – Pain

Even though it's been years now, and she's no longer that silly girl with a silly crush, she's never learned how to stop her body from responding to him, and he can still detect the thread of pleasure in her cries when he yanks her hair or leaves her lips swollen and bleeding.

#05 – Potatoes

It was very nearly the proudest day of her life, when she managed to make him choke over a bit of herbed potato by announcing conversationally that she'd decided what she wanted for Christmas this year, and it involved being tied up in red ribbon and garlands and whipped with a pine branch.

#06 – Rain

When he informs her that they'll be walking home tonight, in spite of the a heavy rain, she rolls her eyes and thinks, _well, at least it might dislodge some of the grease in his hair_.

#07 – Chocolate

Often, when he sends her to the shops, a little extra bundle, something brightly wrapped and chocolate, makes its way into the bag, and even though he always notices, he only punishes her sometimes.

#08 – Happiness

When he orders her coldly from the room because he's trying to think, she thinks ruefully that she'd still rather be happy in her own way sometimes, than happy in someone else's way all the time.

#09 – Telephone

_Stupid contraptions_, they think in disgusted unison when they find themselves, heavily against their will, riding Muggle transit and listening, even more heavily against their will, to an _important businessman_ shouting into a mobile phone for nearly an hour.

#10 – Ears

He may have a hooked nose, she thinks complacently, watching him sleep, and he may be seemingly incapable of washing his hair, but he's got gorgeous ears.

#11 – Name

It's just as well that the chances of their having children is less than none, because who knows what sort of name the poor thing would end up with, and nursing a tiny, cooing, baby-smelling Grindlewald or Salazaar or He Who Must Not Be Named isn't something Pansy even wants to think about.

#12 – Sensual

His voice is the only way a _smart girl like her _could listen avidly in class all year, and still very nearly fail Potions.

#13 – Death

He's going to kill her for this, he decides ominously when a little square of paper scented with cinnamon, bearing a message just as spicy, tumbles out of one of his books and he is hard-pressed to give anything more than half his mind for the rest of the day.

#14 – Sex

Her first time with him might not have been her first time with anyone, but it was certainly her first time in a professor's office – at least, her first time in a professor's office, with the professor, while shackled to the professor's desk.

#15 – Touch

Sometimes she wonders if anything she does affects him at all, and thinks petulantly that it's not _fair _that he can reduce her to a helpless puddle of need with a word when she can't even make him want her by giving him a lap-dance; but the ferocity of his kisses, the bruises on her wrists from his hands, always prove her wrong.

#16 – Weakness

They have both prided themselves for their whole lives on avoiding the weakness that comes with caring about another; they have both been lying to themselves for years now, even if the lie is more obvious in her case.

#17 – Tears

It's strange, she thinks, that she can amuse him with feigned tears, while real tears just annoy him.

#18 – Speed

It didn't take him long to discover that their games were far more than a pleasant diversion to her, when she hunted him swiftly down with all the ruthlessness of seventeen years old and used to getting her own way, and refused to go; despite his icy commands to _get out before you get yourself killed, you silly girl_, he was far more relieved than was strictly safe when she stubbornly refused to be shaken off, swearing that she'd stay with him no matter who was trying to hunt him down.

#19 – Wind

Sometimes, it takes her a little while to remember how much she loves his creativity; like when she stands, shivering, naked, and dripping wet, in an icy wind shooting from the tip of his wand because he's decides that since she forgot to hang up fresh towels, she can dry off without them.

#20 – Freedom

Millicent thinks that Pansy's trying to convince herself more than anyone when she talks, dark eyes sparkling enthusiastically, about how _liberating _it's been to subject herself to a lover's will so fully; Severus, overhearing the conversation between two old school chums, wonders if Millicent's right.

#21 – Life

When she assures him earnestly later on that it's not true, she really _is_ happy, and anyway, he's giving as much to this as she is, he hides a smirk and lets her _reassure _him.

#22 – Jealousy

Gradually, she's come to learn some ways to scare a reaction from him; her favourite is the way his eyes narrow and darken and sparkle dangerously when she flirts with this or that young man, with all the confidence of a woman who may not be _beautiful_, but knows that she's _desirable_.

#23 – Hands

She has to struggle to keep from moaning aloud when his hands tighten painfully at her arms as he leads her to the door, murmuring lethally into her hair that they've had enough _socializing _for one night.

#24 – Taste

_Well, he clearly knows nothing about fashion, anyway,_ she tells herself, miffed and hurt and pulling at the laces of the delicately made deep red and black corset nevertheless, when he orders her to _take off that ridiculous contraption_.

#25 – Devotion

There's something so _feudal _about it, she thought once while she had yet to turn twenty and was still given to flights of absurd poetic fancy; she's given him (almost) unwavering devotion, and he's given her protection (from everyone but him).

#26 – Forever

Sometimes he thinks it might take him the rest of his natural life to become used to her, this constant source of noise and energy and aggravation; other times, he admits grudgingly that it might not be so bad.

#27 – Blood

There's something so _amusing _about seeing him go pale (well, _paler_) in disgust when she shows him the gash she put in her arm trying to dry dishes the Muggle way – _just for a stupid game, you know, because you're so busy that I need to do _something_ to entertain myself_.

#28 – Melody

He has never had any use for music, and after the fifth time he brings an end to her attempt to _keep in practice _with a silencing spell that leaves her howling noiselessly with outrage for the rest of the day, it begins to lose its appeal for her, too.

#29 – Sickness

"You may be useless as a housekeeper, my dear," he says with a smirk that would turn her bones to water if he wasn't currently struggling to sit upright with this bloody fever, "but you're showing promise as a nurse."

#30 – Star

"And do you imagine that I would _let _you put yourself on display for every lonely man with enough pocket money to buy a magazine?" he asks, amused but lethal, when she sleepily confides her childhood dream of being a famous model.

#31 – Home

"I told you to be _careful_," he growls when she admits hesitantly that she might have been seen, and she knows why he's angry, because really, she has no great desire to move again when they've just gotten settled here.

#32 – Confusion

She loves being off-balance, almost as much as he enjoys keeping her there.

#33 – Fear

When she thinks about it, she can't remember _ever _having a lover that she wasn't a _little _afraid of – _he _just always has to be the best at everything he does, doesn't he?

#34 – Lightning/Thunder

Since he found out that she was deathly afraid of thunderstorms, he's made a point to push her up against the front window at the first hint of lightning, bunch her skirts up at her waist, and take her there.

#35 – Bonds

She thinks it probably _should _be her favourite part, when he unties the straps that have been digging painfully into her wrists, and banishes the angry red marks with a gentle healing spell; but it isn't.

#36 – Market

Just like that simple, narrow silver collar he bought while out on the rare shopping trip he didn't send her to take care of in his place _should _have lost its novelty by now, but she still thinks, panicked, that she might climax at nothing more than the sensation of his finger tracing the skin of her throat just beneath the tight metal band.

#37 – Technology

She laughed uproariously when she showed him, flushed with pride, her new front-close black lace brassiere that Mum sent her, and he said coldly that he had no use for silly Muggle technology.

#38 – Gift

"Those were a _gift_, thank-you very much," she informs him grumpily when he rips her little red and gold lacy knickers to shreds out of habit.

#39 – Smile

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen you smile, and _no_, Severus, smirking does _not _count."

#40 – Innocence

When she asks archly how many other little schoolgirls he robbed of their innocence in all his years at Hogwarts, he smirks and reminds her that she never _had _any to take.

#41 – Completion

"Pansy, I need to finish this, and if you don't leave me alone to do so within the next ten seconds, you'll be spending the night in here, suspended from the rafters by your ankles."

#42 – Clouds

It's impossible to get up a really good sulk around him, because when she catches a glimpse in the mirror of that little dark grey thundercloud he's positioned just over her head to follow her around all day, she always starts laughing, even though her make-up's running off from the rain.

#43 – Sky

When she receives a letter from an old friend, gushing enthusiastically about a new boyfriend and his gift of a quill pen made out of a feather he found, her first thought is that if Chrissie writes this much all the time, it'll wear out in one letter, and she realizes in half-despair and half-elation, just what an effect Severus has had on her

#44 – Heaven

It's pure bliss, to feel his hand gently at her cheek when she's lying in a heap on the floor, spent and exhausted after a far more severe whipping than usual, and to hear him murmur against her hair that she's forgiven this time, because she's taken her punishment so well.

#45 – Hell

She'll never get used to the shock of pain and terror when he coldly orders her away, because he has no time to waste on such a hopeless case, even though she knows she only has to keep trying to make him let her in.

#46 – Sun

"Close the damn curtains," he orders, even though his pained groan, thanks to a night of more wine than he usually drinks in a month, makes it sound more like a plea, as the sunlight spills in through the window because it's close to eleven and she's getting tired of talking to herself.

#47 – Moon

When the moon rises with no sign of her returning from wherever she disappears to when he sends her out shopping, he rolls his eyes in annoyance; when sunrise comes with her sneaking stealthily back inside, he can feel his jaw creaking in anger.

#48 – Waves

"I stayed the night with Mum because she was upset," she explains tearfully, "and I didn't know it would worry you, because nothing _ever _seems to make waves with you!"

#49 – Hair

Her _face _may not be terribly pretty, he thinks, watching her prepare their meal wearing only a pair of high-heeled sandals with narrow black ribbons lacing up her calves, but that body is a sight he'd happily live with for the _next _ten years, too, and the long, thick, glossy dark hair brushing the curve of her waist has him half-hard before she even knows he's there.

#50 – Supernova

There's a small part of both of them that's just waiting for the day that what they have burns itself out, but until that happens, they can damn well _enjoy _it.

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End Notes: And now we come to it. Why did I bother posting this? Well, for such a crack-pairing, Pansy/Snape is one that's had me fascinated for quite a while. I love the snarky/bratty combination far too much. And I figured, this is probably the only thing I'll ever be able to write for them, so I might as well. Who knows? Maybe someday, I'll stop being lazy and turn it into a full-length story.


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